Tesla Cybertruck Not Off To A Good Start … – CleanTechnica

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One of our readers who has sent along great, eye-popping Tesla milestones over the past several years just mailed in another series of updates on Tesla progress. Note that Rajan has continued to send in positive Tesla milestones even in the past year, when many former Tesla fans could no longer cheerlead the company. He is not typically one to pick on Tesla or bring up anything negative about the company. Though, in this case, the update comes with more concerns or failures than highlights.

“Here are 8 Cybertruck dates and while the first 2 are positive, the next 6 are not,” Rajan writes. “Most of the 2.2 million reservation holders would have got the refund by now.”

Before getting to some of his other notes on what could turn things around for the Cybertruck, let’s run through the 8 key dates he highlighted:

So, I think the key point here is that Tesla already rolled through all of its Cybertruck “reservations” in the US — in just under a year. Tesla was supposed to have some crazy number of reservations for the Cybertruck (as Rajan notes, 2.2 million), but as of early October, when only about 30,000 Cybertrucks had been delivered, Tesla was already allowing people to order without a reservation and indicating they’d receive their trucks in just 4–6 weeks!

This is a big dent in the hype that the Cybertruck was going to be a big disruptive force in the US truck market, hype that I will admit I pushed for a while. Though, I do think there are some clear reasons for the failure. The truck costs a lot more than it was originally supposed to cost and has a lot less range than it was initially supposed to have. When you cut the range in half and increase the price by tens of thousands of dollars, you can expect reservation holders won’t be thrilled and will pass up on their opportunity to buy the vehicle.

Some of the more recent updates imply a need to stir up more demand for the truck. The lease price was cut 4 weeks ago, the cost of a special wrap (instead of stainless steel) was cut a couple of weeks ago and Tesla reportedly started rubbing off the Foundation series badges of unsold Foundation series trucks in order to sell them as lower-trim vehicles at lower cost (a negative story we decided to skip), and now if you buy a Tesla Cybertruck Foundation series, you get lifetime free Supercharging (maybe I should buy one now and run it into the ground as a taxi living off of free Supercharging).

As noted at the top, Rajan has some ideas for how Tesla could turn things around. Let’s get to those now.

“Ideally Tesla can launch the promised 6 seater version that will be good for family of 4 to drive occasionally with the grand-parents. Most pickups have 6 seater version,” he wrote. He also noted that people buying an $80,000 product would normally like a choice of color, so perhaps Tesla should just offer the wraps free of charge — or for no more than $1,000 extra.

Ah, well, that’s the end of the suggestions. I thought there was more initially, but what more could turn things around? Tesla could drive down production costs and drop the price, theoretically. It could also achieve a battery breakthrough and double the range … theoretically. Otherwise, it’s hard to be optimistic about the Cybertruck at the moment. It’s not turning out as hyped or hoped. I think even many people who like the vehicle have decided it’s not for them due to cost and range. If sales remain low in the coming year, though, would Elon Musk do what he said years ago he’d do if the Cybertruck bombed — design and sell a more normal looking pickup truck?

Thanks again to Rajan for his superb tracking. I assume the next update from him will be something more positive.